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Owner Tasks

Google Sites reserves several site management functions to users with 'Owner' permissions.

Team collaboration sites have been setup so that these owner tasks are rarely necessary during regular site operations.
  • All these site capabilities have been adequately configured during site creation.
  • However for Google Drive file archiving and maintenance tasks utilizing a managing account may be necessary on a monthly basis. 
These capabilities are reserved for Site Owners:
Within the scope of Site Layout are:  
  • Sidebar (Menus and other elements), 
  • Horizontal Navigation, 
  • Header, 
  • Footer (system & custom) and 
  • Site Width.
The Site layout is edited by visiting:  More actions -> Edit site layout  

The tutorial for using these capabilities is available on the Intermediate Skills / Structure & Layout / Edit Site Layout page.

Manage Site

Many site management capabilities are also available to editors such as pages (site map view and rearrange), attachments, page templates, apps scripts and templates.

However 4 management pages are only available to site owners:
  • General
  • Sharing and Permissions
  • Web Address Mapping
  • Themes, Colors and Fonts
Refer to:  More actions -> Manage site 

Themes, Colors and Fonts

This management area, 'Themes, Colors and Fonts' along with the 'Edit Site Layout' area (discussed above) control the overall 'look and feel' of a site.

Themes, Colors and Fonts is used to configure the base settings for all the elements of the website, such as the appearance of normal text (font, size, color). As well as all other text elements: headings, sidebar text, header text, footer text, inserted objects text. background attributes can also be adjusted, selecting shading or images for the various elements of the site.


Themes - first select a base theme (preconfigured settings) as a starting point. Google Sites includes many (~50) themes.
  • While there are a numerous themes to choose from, a common criticism of Google Sites is a desire to have more 'modern' and 'mobile-first' looking themes to choose. 

Customization - any particular setting can be customized. Select the part of the site, the items (background or various text items) and the settings for the item.
  • Customization can be a tedious process to get the desired 'look and feel' while having all the elements of the site working in a harmonious fashion. 

Sharing Permissions

Only the site owner can view and edit a site's Sharing Permissions.

To edit the sharing permissions either:
  • click on the 'Share' button in the top right
  • use command:  More actions -> Manage site -> Sharing and Permissions
Note team sites typically use page-level permissions capabilities.

TBD add more later.

General

The general page is a grab-bag of site-wide settings only available to site owners.

Items include:  site name and description, search options, copy and delete, analytics settings, mobile content, and who may view site activity.

To access these visit:  More actions -> Manage site -> General  

Copy Site

Copying a site would be done to:
  • Clone the site to create another - such as spawning a new team site or creating a draft sandbox for learning and development new material.
  • Backup - to prepare a backup instance of the site as of a particular date.
    • When preparing a site backup, it is customary to add the date to the site name, such as 'z2015-04-01-MySiteName' when backup a set of sites all at once, or 'zMySiteName-2015-04-01' for individual sites.  Note adding the 'z' as the first character will help to keep your sites.google.com listing organized with all archive sites at the bottom of your list.

Delete Site

Deleting a site is done when the site is obsolete and you know you definitely don't need anything on it anymore.

Short of deleting a site, you may want to consider the following actions that will reduce access to the site without actually deleting it:
  • Remove Web Address Mapping - if your site has a shorted address such as learngooglesites.steveraab.com , simply removing this address mapping may be sufficient to curtail external access.
    • To do this, In Google Apps the Google Apps System Administrator must perform this action by entering admin.google.com the going to Services > Sites > Advanced Settings:    TBD  insert specific URL
  • Remove Sharing Permissions - by removing sharing, you can make the site inaccessible to other parties.
    • To edit sharing, click on the blue 'Share' button in the top-right.  Then adjust settings, perhaps removing everyone except for you, the owner.
Deleted Sites are placed into a special 'trashcan' area for 30 days.  Access them by visiting sites.google.com and selecting 'Deleted Sites' in the sidebar.  During this time Deleted Sites can be restored or permanently deleted.

Of course when creating a site, you are automatically the 'owner'.

Web Address Mapping

Once the web address mapping for a site have been configured, it's unlikely it will need changing (unless the site is moving, or being repurposed).

Learn more about Web Address Mapping on the Advanced Skills / Domain Names / Connect Domain page.

Also Editor Tasks

Since an 'owner' is the highest permission level, a site owner can also perform all Editor Tasks.